Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Food Insecurity and Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs for Children

(Poverty and Income Policy)

Recent data from the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the USDA indicate that food insecurity among households with children remains a persistent problem. In 2014, just over 19% of US households with children experienced food insecurity at some point, and in 9.4% of such homes, children themselves were food insecure. Accordingly, understanding the nature of food insecurity among households with children and the policies and programs that can be most effective in reducing food insecurity are essential goals for the research and policy communities. This panel is comprised of three related papers, each focused on food insecurity and/or food and nutrition programs for children. The papers represent diverse perspectives from academic researchers and federal policy practitioners. Our discussant, a policy practitioner, will provide important insight regarding the policy relevance of each of the studies. The first paper focuses on the gap in coverage that occurs as children age out of eligibility for the WIC program and before they enter school and become eligible for the National School Lunch Program. Understanding the interaction between programs is important to enhancing the effectiveness of the social safety net, particularly when program rules result in unintended and negative consequences for children. Initial analyses for this paper suggest that each additional month without coverage is associated with lower cognitive scores at kindergarten entry, effects which fortunately disappear by spring of that year. The second paper deals with important issues related to the measurement of food insecurity among households with children. Though ERS’ Food Security Module has been the gold-standard measurement tool for food insecurity for many years, the National Academies Committee on National Statistics recently recommended changes to make the measurement of food insecurity in households with and without children more comparable. Whereas the traditional approach has been to identify a household as food insecure based on the full set of questions in the module, this paper explores the experimental approach of identifying a household as food insecure if there is either food insecurity among children or adults. Initial results suggest that while the new experimental method reduces bias, the traditional method is more closely related to alternative measures of food adequacy. The third and final paper estimates the impact of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) on child well-being. Initially implemented in a handful of pilot states in 2011, the CEP was rolled out nationwide in 2014, and allows schools with high poverty rates to make free breakfasts and lunches available to all children. Significantly, the CEP allows districts to determine school-level eligibility based on administrative data rather than household-level eligibility checks. Though research has demonstrated that the CEP has increased participation in the school meals programs, no previous study has investigated whether it affects outcomes for children. Using state administrative and child-level survey data, this paper uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effects of the CEP on food insecurity, child cognitive outcomes, and child behavior.